Indigo Flowers, Affectionate Praise
by Saskicheez
Summary: She is not the mountain's flower, nor is she their praise. She is small and she is weak, but she will NOT stay that way.
1. Prologue

**Frozen**

A cold wind whistles through the trees, though she can't hear it. She can barely feel the tufts of hair it sends tickling against her cheek. There is a fight continuing around her, but the only sound she can hear is a laugh that grows louder as her blurring vision slowly fades out. It's loud and she hates it, she just wants it to be quiet because she's

so

very

 _tired_.

The laughter roars in her ears, louder and louder until it is the only thing she knows and then it all just

 _Stops._

Nara Aika dies in the forests of northern Fire country, in the third winter free of the Second Shinobi World War. Her brother, Kouen finds it morbidly humorous that after surviving the War and constantly getting into ridiculously dangerous confrontations, she finally dies in a time of 'Peace'.

He likes to think the wind that blows through his hair when he tells this opinion to her grave is her way of laughing at it with him.

* * *

 **(re)Birth**

On the twenty third of May, exactly thirty four years after the Second Shinobi War ended, a child enters the world, shrieking at the top of her little infant lungs.

Her parents smile and wonder if it is a preview of what their little girl will grow up to be, a little spitfire like her cousins.

It is not.

It is as the medic nin runs a diagnostic check over the baby that the shriek suddenly cuts off into a hum and she stares up at the woman holding her. The woman shudders as she catches a glint behind the child's eyes tha _ **t** **oo** **old for the face the body the mind-too old, too weary**_ ** _for a newborn and ju_ _s_** t shouldn't be there.

The child's parents don't see it or the woman's trembling hands, her back turned to them as their daughter lays on a padded table but it's _right there_ in front of her and _it's terrifying_. The parents are chuckling behind her as th _ **ose eyes that don't belong to a child but sit in the skull of a baby born right before her very eyes moments ago and they're still ther**_ e child hums again and blinks at her slowly.

The child is handed back to her mother by a medic with a strained smile and shaking hands that are quickly hidden out of sight. The medic watches as the couple coo at the child and she wants to scream at them to just _look_ , to see their child is already broken, that the child whose birth she just watched has eyes like her brother, the eyes of a soldier broken by the horrors of a war which ended almost three years ago.

The father is a Yamanaka and the mother was once called Nara, she knows they would see through any attempt she could make to control the fear that turns the blood pounding in her ears to ice, so she flees the room as calmly as she can.

The woman will not remember the name of the child for she does not learn it, but she will remember this night, three months later as the Kyuubi stands blocking the sky and she worries about all the children she has helped bring into the world, until the monster's howls echo in _ **tent to kill killing killed dead dying lying face down in a ditch itch in her skin thin like paper that won't protect h**_ er chest and she feels a thrum of malice in the air that seeps into her bones.

She remembers the child born with eyes that saw more than they should, and she feels no guilt as she wishes that if the Kyuubi must take a child's life this night, that the _(not a)_ child be the lone sacrifice.

She will remember this night many years later when the child once more sits on a table in front of her, grey eyes that have lost their edg _ **eyes like that don't just go away, they just don't trust it must be a trick but it won't work on her now**_ atching her face as she crosses the room. Her hands glow green and she sets to work on the child's arm. It's a clean break of the ulna, routine and simple and something she's done a hundred times over.

Why then, do her hands refuse to stop trembling?

The child is still small, five-i **s** _ **he lies to herself, she remembers how long ago, knows how old the not-child is, she remembers**_ ixat the oldest. The small child with a broken arm sits watching her in silence.

Why is she the one with an urge to burst into tears?

She will remember this night, but she has time before those days come.

Tonight, a medic runs from a family doomed and a child unfortunate. She does not know this; she would only run faster if she did.

Yamanaka Aika, favorite flower of the mountain is born on the thirty fourth anniversary of the end of the Second Shinobi World War, and the shadow with eyes of steel screams because suddenly she's _back_ when she had been nothing a moment ago and all she can hear is laughter fading in her ears.


	2. Chapter 1

**Enthusiasm**

Aika is less than a month old when her parents first become truly worried for their little flower. Babies cry and gurgle and try to put anything and everything in their mouths and view the world at large as a brand new toy to be played with-

But Aika does none of that.

Ino, the daughter of Iori's cousin, grins and babbles nonstop at everyone she sees. The little blonde throws herself into each of her escapades with enthusiasm and is eager to learn about the world around her through doing.

Children are supposed to have enthusiasm, to be restless, but Aika simply is not.

She watches the world around her with grey eyes that have more understanding behind them than a newborn should. Even for a child with Nara blood running in her veins, she is an anomaly.

Her parents worry, because while the war is over and she is no longer at risk of being thrown onto a battlefield at age five, there are other factors that make their village a dangerous place for a child with the markings of a genius.

* * *

 **Father**

Yamanaka Iori is a kind man.

He is a man with so much _(loyalty)_ lovefor his nation, his village, for his clan. He is a man with so much love for his family, and this only makes her guilt grow.

She cannot act like a proper infant, cannot properly disguise herself for she has no knowledge of what an infant _does_. She has not been left to observe other children her age, to interact with her 'peers' so she does not know what everyone expects from her.

She cannot pretend to be this man's daughter, cannot allow her infantile instincts to overrule her concious thoughts because then she would be forced back into her _(nightmares)_ memories of the battle fields that once made up her life.

She cannot be this man's little girl, can't even pret _ **end of the war of the world as she knew it was burning the bodies of so many comrades that didn't live to see the war finally e**_ ndto be his favorite little flower. She is sorry as she watches his face light up when he sees her, sorry that he could not have a proper daughter to spoil rotten and fawn over. She is sorry that she is not _his_ Aika, that she cannot love him the way a proper child would. She wants to, by the _gods_ she wants to, but-

He is not her Tou-chan. Her Tou-chan died when she was eleven and her brother was thirteen. He had a goatee and dark, spiky hair in a ponytail. He had shadows under his tired, dark grey eyes and a laugh that was nothing more than a rumble in his chest that shook his shoulders and he was always smirking at her and Kouen because he teased them incessantly.

People often said Nara Enmei seemed like he was too cold, too distant of a person to be a good husband, let alone father, but there was never a time when Aika felt the need to question if he loved his family. He loved them, and they loved him.

He frowned and scowled and grunted and overall acted like an Uchiha, but he was not as cold as many assumed. To Aika, he always felt like a summer evening, his presence always warm and shadow-like. It would hang in the air around her, so thick she could feel it against her skin like the humidity of mid July and it whispered in her ears of shadows and other familiar things. He always smelt of the Nara forest and paper, of ink and coffee with a faint hint of spices and flowers from his teammates.

Yamanaka Iori is a kind man, talkative, always smiling, always willing to help no matter what-

And that only makes the differences more obvious.

Iori is cleanshaven and has pinstraight, auburn hair in a high ponytail. His blue eyes are always gleaming with happiness everytime she sees him and his laugh can fill a room all by itself and his grin is _blinding_. He tickles her sides until she splutters and flails at him, but while he laughs and smiles she can see the hesitance hiding deep in his eyes. She knows he wonders where the little ball of sunshine he expected is, wonders why his baby girl is so odd.

She watches the gears turn behind his eyes, but then it vanishes and he smiles like the sun and is so _loving_ and _kind_ and-

Aika doesn't know what to do with it. He feels like a spring morning, the sun coming over the horizon and dispersing the clouds for a fresh new day. She wants to coo at him and babble happily like he wishes she would, but her goddamn _pride_ locks any and all childish impulses away before she can use them.

Some days, he smells of witchhazel and aloe, of plants and soil and familiar spices, and she can accept that he is not her Tou-chan _(is dead),_ but he is _this_ Aika's father and he loves her anyways. He loves her even if she can't be the happy, loving, little princess this kind, kind man deserves, the little princess that would see him for the bright sun he is.

She cannot pretend to be the daughter this man deserves, but she will do her best to be a daughter he can be proud of regardless.

* * *

A/N: First off, thank you for taking the time to read this story (work in progress that it is) and for taking the time to read this author's note.

Next, mildly important bits of info I figure you would want to know. Updates are whenever I feel like I've written enough for a chapter so they may be larger or smaller, but there will always be at least two little sections in each update. My muse is sporadic and I've got Uni to deal with so I'll try to update about once every week, every two weeks if my mind gets stubborn. I fully intend to continue this until I have used all the ideas I have and little prompts so even if it seems like I've abandoned it, until I delete it I still plan to come back.

Interesting facts:

-While, yes, this was heavily inspired by other SIOC stories, the ones I have to give credit for truly inspiring me to the point of posting something are as follows:

 **( 大理石のベンチで )** by Vitalum Vitalus, which is less of an SIOC than usual as the main character's first life was as a Hyuuga, albeit she lived many years ago.

Catch Your Breath by LangNoi, definitely my favorite as it is a serious look at growing up, but is still lighthearted enough that I don't feel weighed down while reading it.

Clearing Mist by Shadownumera, definitely not one of the angst filled super serious fics and if you just skipped to the ending it would seem a bit unnatural and crackish but trust me, it's not. But I may be biased since I did draw a picture for this one and got a really cute omake as thanks.

Decaying Bluebells and Rotted Rowan, both by Darkpetal16 herself. Again, not super heavy but still serious and truly original which given how many SIOC stories are out there is hard to come by these days.

These wonderful humans are authors I only strive to be, and there are many others I would add to this list but these are the most prominent and there are _way_ too many to do them all.

\- The title is entirely pulled from possible meanings of the characters I used for both of Aika's names, but swapped around.

* * *

 **山中: Yamanaka** is written with characters that according to Narutopeadia roughly translate to 'middle of the mountain'.

* * *

 **愛華: Aika**

This version of Aika is written with characters **愛** (ai) which can be read as meaning affection, favourite, or love, and **華** (ka, ke, hana) which can be read as meaning flower, gay, gorgeous, luster, ostentatious, petal, shine, showy, or splendor.

The meaning I like to pull from this version of her name is 'Favorite flower' which when using a sort of odd way of saying surnames, 'Yamanaka no Aika' her name does pretty much translate to 'favorite flower of the mountain.'

* * *

 **藍嘉: Aika**

This version of Aika, the way Aika personally prefers it to be written, is written with the characters **藍** (ai) meaning indigo and **嘉** (ka) meaning applaud, esteem, or praise.

'Indigo praise' may be a bit of an odd name and an odd choice when I could have just made the names based on the title, but meh. Kanji can mean what people want it to mean and I've decided her parents were a bit odd themselves.

* * *

For all these written characters, they can be said/read/pronounced in different ways but I only showed the ones I'm using in this instance.

I'll stop now, I think this A/N is longer than the 'enthusiasm' section. Oops.


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